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OxyContin Makers Fined $634.5 Million

OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma L.P. and three of the company's top executives have been ordered to pay a $634.5 million dollar fine for failing to warn the public about the high risk of addiction associated with use of the painkiller. According to the New York Times, "U.S. District Judge James Jones levied the fine on Purdue, its top lawyer and former president and former chief medical officer after a hearing that lasted about four-and-a-half hours. The hearing included statements by numerous people who said their lives were changed forever by the addiction potential of OxyContin, a trade name for a long-acting form of the painkiller oxycodone." In May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the results of an investigation which found that Purdue Pharma "trained its sales force to represent to health care providers that OxyContin did not cause euphoria and was less addictive than immediate-release opiates; and allowed health care providers to entertain the erroneous belief that OxyContin was less addictive than morphine."